Izuku's first attempt at freedom starts small. It goes unnoticed by Stendhal, who is used to him wandering the surrounding alleys to check for witnesses or victims or more people who need help. It is their usual routine, only this time Izuku finds himself just a little further than normal. He searches for heroes instead of people that need help.

Stendhal finds him four blocks away. Izuku smiles up at the man, says, "I cleared this whole area!" and hopes that Stendhal can't hear the way his heart is hammering in his chest. The man just smiles down at Izuku from behind his mask and ruffles his tangle-free hair.

Izuku does not protest as Stendhal lifts him up and carries him back to the rooftops to continue their nightly activities. He does not try his luck again for the rest of the week, but the next time he sees an opening he chooses to take it.

Again, Stendhal finds him blocks away, and again he accepts Izuku's easy smile and happy declaration of having patrolled the surrounding area all by himself without suspicion. He even seems pleased that Izuku is taking the initiative to continue helping people while Stendhal is otherwise occupied with taking down the latest villain. It gives him hope that his plan will work. He just has to be patient and to have faith that a hero will find him.

Several months pass and Izuku is "patrolling" larger areas, out of Stendhal's watchful eye for longer than he has been since the day the man stole him from the playground near his house. He rarely sees anyone, which is fine. He has known from the beginning that his plan was going to take time. He has been with Stendhal for four years, so a few more days (or weeks or months or years) is nothing to him.

He helps the few civilians he meets that need it and hopes that a real hero will stumble upon the scene. He smiles at Stendhal and accepts the man's praise and trains harder than ever before in preparation for a time when he may have to run from the man who has taught him everything he knows. Some nights, when Stendhal ruffles his hair and smiles at him with pride shining in his dark eyes, Izuku can't help the churning sensation of guilt at the realization that he is betraying his mentor's trust. He tells himself that he isn't trying to run away. Not really.

It's just that if a hero finds him wandering the streets on his own so late after dark and asks where his parents are, he definitely isn't going to stop them from taking him back to his mom.

It is almost three in the morning and he is picking his way through an alley behind a large apartment building. The fire escape is rusted and crumbling, and the dumpsters are overflowing with trash. The smell that fills the air would have been enough to make him gag if he didn't already spend most of his nights in alleyways almost identical to this one. Still, there is something about this place that is making the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

He is preparing to scale the fire escape, up to the rooftops and onto the next filth filled alley, when he hears a sniffle. Izuku whirls around, white knuckled hand gripping his collapsible staff and adrenaline already pumping through his veins.

"You don't live here," a small voice says, and his eyes focus on the girl that has stepped from behind a dumpster to face him. She doesn't sound accusatory or even curious. Her voice is flat and her expression is empty. She talks like she doesn't really care, like she is speaking just for the sake of alerting him to her presence. It unsettles him for reasons he can't place.

"No," he says, slowly releasing his grip on the weapon. "I don't. I'm just passing through."

The girl nods like his answer is satisfactory, but neither of them make any move to leave. A business's neon sign blinks and flickers at the mouth of the alley, throwing bright splashes of color over the both of them and illuminating the girl's features. He can feel her examining him, taking in his weapons and his mask.

He studies her in turn, mind working to put together pieces of a puzzle he hasn't seen before. She's close to his age, baby fat still clinging to her cheeks. Her hair is cut short and her feet are bare despite the glass that litters the ground. She is hiding behind a dumpster in a bad part of the city wearing nothing but her nightgown, which looks to be several sizes too large for her. There are cuts on her knees and on her feet, yet she does not seem to care.

"Do you need help?" he asks her, taking a step forward. She shuffles back two steps in return, gaze never straying from his face as she eyes his mask with distrust. Izuku recognizes that look at least, and he pastes on his best comforting smile as he reaches up to slowly remove it. The girl does not react as he shows her his face, but the flickering neon reflects in her empty eyes. He waits for her to respond, his instincts telling him that she needs his help while his mind urges him to keep moving.

Then, like a ray of sunshine breaking over the darkened horizon, a smile spreads across her face.

"Someone hit you," she says, a dirty hand tracing over her own cheek. Izuku reaches up to touch the bruise that paints his face in splotchy greens and purples, taken aback.

"What?"

"Oh, don't worry. I won't tell. Someone hits me, too."

She sounds delighted. He watches, frozen with surprise, as she lifts the hem of her nightgown to show the bruising that covers her torso. Izuku feels sick as his eyes trace the shapes and colors, automatically putting timeframes and severity to each one. The newest ones are still red and swollen, bruises not yet formed. Izuku is horrified.

"I have an ice pack," he blurts. The girl drops her nightgown, hiding the wounds beneath the thin pink fabric. She looks confused by his declaration, though the smile does not leave her lips. Izuku drops his mask to the ground and kneels on the dirty ground, pulling his backpack off and fumbling with the zippers.

"Did you want me to put it in the freezer for you?" she asks, inching slowly closer to him. "You'd have to wait until tomorrow night to get it back, though." Izuku shakes his head, frustration mounting as he digs through his pack. He tells himself that he is going to organize it better when he gets home tonight.

"It's for you," he says, then hums happily as his fingers wrap around the first aid kit. He pulls it out with a triumphant sound and opens it, happy to see the little plastic pouch. "You just squeeze it and it gets cold. It's pretty cool."

"Was that pun on purpose?"

He grins at her, and her smile begins to lose its sharp edge. She looks almost shy as she steps closer, tentatively holding her hand out for the ice pack. She looks like she is waiting for him to change his mind, to retract his offer of help and laugh in her face instead. He remembers feeling like that too sometimes, back when he still had friends that would tease and hurt him because he didn't know what his Quirk was yet.

"It's okay," he tells her, thinking about the videos that helped him through the pain back then.

"But...why?"

"Because I am here."

Her smile does not drop, but the tears that flow down her cheeks flash pink and blue with the neon lights.

.

She makes him promise not to tell anyone about her, saying that she will disappear if he does. Izuku thinks it over and decides that at least this way he can help her. He reluctantly agrees not to tell.

He visits her once a week to bring bandages and salves, and some nights just to keep her company. She asks to see his new bruises and cuts each time. He obliges on the condition that she shows him hers in return and lets him treat them. She giggles as he applies the antiseptic, amused by the stinging, and shows her fangs in a smile as he wraps gauze around her.

The third week he asks Stendhal to teach him more advanced first aid, and finds himself with several new books on the subject and another hour added to their training sessions. He flips through the books until he finds a section on how to tell if ribs are broken. His mentor pretends like he's not spying on what Izuku is reading, but Izuku catches the way the man's eyebrows go through some complicated acrobatics, which he tries and fails to hide behind his newspaper.

The fifth week he learns that her name is Himiko. She doesn't ask for his name in return and he doesn't offer it, though a part of him wishes that he could tell her. She takes the bandages he brought and wraps them around her face, insisting she'll be the mummy and he'll be the brave explorer who finds her tomb. He laughs as she chases him through the dirty alley, ducking behind dumpsters and hiding from the monster who wants to eat him. It's the first time in years that he's gotten the chance to play and it sets his heart racing with joy.

Two months pass and he has almost completely forgotten his plan to find a hero. Seeing Himiko is the highlight of his nights, and he knows that once he is no longer patrolling with Stendhal he will not be able to see her anymore. She is only able to come outside to play with him at night when her dad is at work, after all.

In the third month, she asks about his Quirk.

"My mentor thinks I have an Analysis Quirk, but it's not registered or anything. My friends used to make fun of me because they thought I was Quirkless."

Himiko nods and slurps her drink loudly, watching him with half lidded eyes. They are empty again at the moment, but it doesn't bother him anymore. She offers it to him when she is done, but he shakes his head. She shrugs, then leans back against the dumpster.

"My Quirk isn't registered yet either," she says. Izuku perks up.

"What is it?"

"Dunno. It's gotta be something though, right?"

"Yeah! All the signs are there of a mutation type, at least!" Izuku's mind is racing with the information presented to him, searching through memories and the bits and pieces he has observed before now. Himiko grins at him and pulls her lips back to show her fangs. Life is beginning to bleed back into her yellow eyes.

"These are here for a reason!"

They spend the rest of the night theorizing about what her Quirk might be. Himiko agrees to test his theories and does so with a smile, no matter how ridiculous his ideas are. She doesn't even get mad when Izuku's Cat Quirk theory ends up with her jumping from the fire escape and definitely not landing on her feet.

As he checks her ankles and wrist for sprains, frantically apologizing as she laughs and assures him that she is fine, Izuku can't help but think that he's never had a better friend.

He knows that Stendhal knows about her. He has seen the man lurking on the rooftops as the night wears to an end. Izuku leaves Himiko as the first hint of dawn turns the sky grey, and he is never surprised to find his mentor waiting patiently for him just one street over. Stendhal doesn't ask where Izuku has been. He just smiles and says, "It looks like you had a good night. Ready to go home?"

Izuku doesn't know what would happen if he were to say no, so he goes home with Stendhal and listens as the man tells him about his night over breakfast. His smiles are real now when the man praises how far he has come, how much he has learned, how much potential he has.

His laughter bubbles up from his belly and fills his chest with happiness on the nights he spends with his friend, treating one another's injuries before chasing each other through the neon spotted darkness. Some nights they just sit together and tell stories, trying to find the stars through the light polluted clouds that hang over the city.

On the nights he doesn't see Himiko, Izuku is so close to living the life he always dreamed of. He is helping others, saving them when the actual heroes can't. He can be a real hero for the people he pulls away from danger and offers comfort to, even if he isn't beating up bad guys like Stendhal does.

(He doesn't think about the other things he knows Stendhal does when he's not around.)

He lays in bed each morning and smiles up at the ceiling, tired eyes watching as scant beams of sunshine poke through the gaps in the boarded up windows and illuminate the room. He thinks that he is happier now than he has been since the day Kacchan started bullying him for not having a Quirk. He wonders what his best friend would think of him now.

And then one day Himiko doesn't show up.

He waits. The neon lights flicker and illuminate the dark blood that stains the space behind the dumpster where she likes to hide. Izuku feels his heart grow heavy in his chest as the minutes tick slowly by, turning to hours. Tears have begun to burn his eyes when Stendhal joins him in the alley.

"Where's your friend, kid?"

"Something's wrong," he whispers, breath hitching. He shoves his hands in the pocket of his hoodie to hide the way they tremble despite knowing that Stendhal won't berate him for it.

"Maybe she was just too tired to meet you," Stendhal offers, sounding too uncertain to bring Izuku any sort of comfort.

"She needs help," Izuku says, tears streaming down his cheeks and glistening in the flashing lights. He knows he is breaking his promise to her, but he pushes forward. "Please find her."

And two days later, Stendhal does. He crouches in front of Izuku and cradles the boy's face between his hands, smiling in a way that Izuku has learned means comfort.

"She's alright," Stendhal says, and Izuku feels like he can breathe for the first time in days. "She's in the hospital now, but she is going to be all better in no time."

"What happened to her?" Izuku asks, and Stendhal's expression turns angry and dangerous. Izuku isn't afraid, because he knows by the unfocused look in the man's eyes that he is not the one who made Stendhal angry.

"It doesn't matter what happened. I made sure it'll never happen again."

Izuku is old enough that he is beginning to better understand what that means. He nods, wetting his lips.

"When can I see her again?"

Now his expression falls from furious to sad, and Izuku's heart drops at the sight. Stendhal heaves a sigh and pulls Izuku in for a hug, trying to preemptively cushion the blow that he is about to deliver.

"She is going to be moved to a new home, with people who won't hurt her. A different kind of hero is helping her now, but that also means—"

"Don't say it," Izuku whispers, burying his face in Stendhal's chest.

"You won't see her again."

Why is writing hard, y'all? If anyone ever wants to beta for a hot mess hmu.

My sister inspired me to include Toga in this fic and now she's got a whole story arc roughly planned out. That's what I get for writing and posting at only disgusting hours of the night. I have no idea what her backstory is so I'm just making it up as we go whoohoo.

Thanks so much for reading! I hope you loved it. (Leave a review if you did because they feed my dumpster fire of a soul.)